26 September 20008

National Punctuation Day!

A panda walks into a café. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and proceeds to fire it at the other patrons.

‘Why?’ asks the confused, surviving waiter amidst the carnage, as the panda makes towards the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.

‘Well, I’m a panda’, he says, at the door. ‘Look it up.’

The waiter turns to the relevant entry in the manual and, sure enough, finds an explanation. ‘Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves.’

Ba-dum-bum.   Also, a great book titled after the punchline of that joke, is Eats, Shoots and Leaves:  the Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation.  Kyle and I both loved it!  A fun, educational read.

Yay!  Finally, a second source of information stating that Galveston will host its annual Dickens on the Strand Festival in December 2008!

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/6022814.html

I was beginning to get worried that the decision had been made too quickly and confidently, and that reality would be harsher.  But, it seems, at least, that the optimistic outlook is being shared with the media.  So, although I haven’t yet received the verification I personally requested via email, I’m going with the optimism!

Although not directly mentioning Dickens, this article is really well-written and seems to communicate better than any I’ve read, what’s really going on right now (or last week, at the time it was written).

http://www.mercurynews.com/breakingnews/ci_10517182

The Y.E.S. Yahoo Group is growing nicely, and I’m hoping for a lively discussion on there regarding our attendance at Dickens on the Strand.

Today’s photo is of a handsome, but no-longer-useful pair of eyeglasses—Kyle’s.  He had his LASIK surgery today, and he is resting.  Each time he’s been awake throughout the evening, he seems to be feeling a little bit better.  He described feeling a lot more pain than we’d been led to believe he’s experience and the whites of his eyes are not white right now . . . they’re very red.  He said it felt like there was sand in his eyes.  We do have a follow-up appointment in the morning, so I will look forward to that.  Having the doctor look at him, and tell us all is well, will be what I need to be relaxed about it.  I was pretty stressed about the surgery today—but once we got there today, it was over so quickly that I didn’t really have time to worry.

Oh, and by the way, now I’m feeling a bit of a chest cold coming on—–grrrrr.

~MB

3 Comments »